SCHNEIDEREIT: McNeil’s stifling of dissent reminiscent of another Stephen

While not in the same league as former prime minister Stephen Harper’s regime, Paul Schneidereit says Stephen McNeil’s government is similar in that it is often not forthcoming with Nova Scotians about what it’s doing. - The Associated Press

I’m not talking about political parties. The longer McNeil’s in power, the more he seems to channel the former Conservative prime minister’s obsession with shutting down dissenting voices and embracing secrecy.

Harper rode to power in 2006, vowing a new era of government accountability. It didn’t take long for him to renege on that pledge. What followed was a nearly decade-long darkening of the public’s right to know what Ottawa was doing, including restricting the traditional ability of parliamentary committees to call witnesses.

Look, obviously McNeil’s nowhere near Harper’s league when it comes to the ex-PM’s compulsion to try to command and control information flows. But after promising the most transparent government in Nova Scotia’s history — that while the Valley politician was eyeing his first election win back in 2013 — McNeil has tacked the opposite way since gaining power.

The result has been a government that’s often not forthcoming with Nova Scotians about what it’s doing — or not doing — on matters of public interest.

McNeil seems perfectly comfortable offering lame “explanations” for why his government’s moves to stifle information are actually improvements that should be applauded.

For example, last week the premier publicly chided members of the opposition for criticizing the Liberal majority on the public accounts committee for restricting meetings to once per month.

McNeil, pointing at the new legislature health committee, encouraged the opposition “to take this new opportunity to hold us accountable on health care.”

As the premier knows, his party’s majority on that committee had already stifled opposition attempts to hear from frontline health-care workers about physicians’ working conditions, a key issue in the ongoing doctor shortage fuelled, in part, by early retirements or departures due to burnout.

The government thinks the committee on health care — which is in crisis — is so important that Liberal MLA Keith Irving said their caucus initially felt only six or seven meetings were needed a year. Monthly meetings were a compromise, he said.

Meanwhile, in case voters haven’t noticed, the Liberals have limited one of the traditional ways the public could hear from civil servants about how their tax dollars are being spent.

The Liberals have tried to spin their hobbling of public accounts, which is now restricted to matters raised by the auditor general, as an improvement that will focus on the AG’s work.

Please. Nothing hampered talking about AG’s reports. Now, however, thanks to the Liberals’ heavy-handedness, other matters the public accounts committee could bring up (and did, in the past) are off limits.

Such changes clearly seem inconsistent with the mandate laid out in the rules and forms of procedure of the House of Assembly, which states “the Public Accounts Committee is established for the purpose of reviewing the public accounts, the annual report or other report of the Auditor General and any other financial matters respecting the public funds of the Province.”

Changes in the committee’s mandate should require a two-thirds majority vote by the entire House — which McNeil would never get. Conveniently, of course, Liberal Speaker Kevin Murphy doesn’t see it that way.